Two Lives
by Nocturnea
Summary: Oyama's not too happy about being looked over by the other Battlefront members. When something goes wrong on a mission, how will they react? (Summary and title subject to change; T to be on the safe side)
1. Chapter 1

**Hi! This is my first Angel Beats fanfic, so I'm a bit nervous... Also, I've got a fairly coherent plan for where it's going to go, and it'll be increasingly AU as it goes on, so if you don't like that kind of thing this isn't the fic for you.**

 **What else, what else... Oh! That's right! I almost forgot to mention that I'm giving Oyama a first name. This is a fanfic featuring him as a main character, and while I'll try and stick to his development from the anime and light novel, there are quite a few details about him I'll be adding. Being a "Jack of All Trades, Master of None" type really, really sucks for a teenager, and that's a side I'll probably be putting a good bit of focus on.**

 **Anyway, enough of my rambling. On with the story!**

Yuki Oyama was not happy. Of course, it bears mentioning that lately he'd never really been in the best of spirits, especially during Battlefront meetings since Yuri still terrified him and Hinata was mostly ignoring him, but that day he was in an even worse mood than usual. He was really not at all in any mood to begin yet another mission, though he probably looked like he was neutral (Yuki was, after all, the champion of seeming completely normal no matter the activity). As he stepped into the meeting room, it occurred to him that it was doubtful anyone would notice. That made him kind of sad, but he didn't linger on those particular sentiments for too long - he had other things to feel negative about.

This was the day that he would have turned fifteen, and none of his new Afterlife friends knew his given name. Although it was his three hundred and sixty-fourth day of being in the Afterlife, and his two hundred and nineteenth day of being roommates with Hideki Hinata, he hadn't given out very much (or really any) personal information. Nobody had asked about it, after all, and he didn't want to bother them. Perhaps more to the point, he didn't want to share something and be ignored or rejected. At the time, he still didn't really have much idea of how his friends thought of him, and he didn't want to seem self-centred.

"Oyama? Oyama?" Yuki blinked. It seemed he had missed part of the briefing while lost in thought, if the changed slide and Otonashi shaking him were any indication.

"A-Ah, I'm sorry... What were you saying?" Yuki rubbed his neck sheepishly, forcing a blithe smile.

Yuri sighed. "I was just announcing the members who will be taking part in the next operation. You're one of them, Oyama."

"Yup," added Hideki with a nod. "Lucky you. We're gonna get ourselves into the student council room somehow, and find out what's with those boxes the Vice Prez keeps putting in there. It's more hare-brained than Yurippe's usual plans, amazingly enough."

"Why thank you," chirped Yuri, before realizing exactly what he had said. "Hare-brained?!" She kicked Hideki in a way that made Yuki and every other guy in the room cringe with sympathy.

"Sheesh, how violent..." Hideki squeaked, dragging himself back onto the couch. Yuri glowered at him.

"Well maybe next time you'll think twice before insulting your leader," sniffed Yuri before switching back to enthusiastic mode. "Now then, are we all clear on the plan? Good. Operation, start!" Yuki had been about to say that no, he wasn't clear about the plan at all, but Yuri announced the start faster, and everyone else seemed to understand just fine. He made a mental note to ask Hideki later for the details, and left the room with a small sigh.

"Hey, Oyama." Yuki whirled around, almost jumping in surprise at the voice from behind him before relaxing when he realized it was only Otonashi. The brunet took a quiet but deep breath, reminding himself that he was in the Afterlife and not actually back at school.

"H-Hi, Otonashi." Yuki put on a casually cheerful expression, scrunching his eyes up a bit to hide the fact that the unnecessarily wide grin wasn't reaching them. "You snuck up on me there."

"Sorry about that," laughed Otonashi. The other boy ran a hand through his sunset-orange hair. "Whew, it's a pretty hot day out, isn't it?" The subject change confused Yuki, but he nodded nonetheless.

"Nice and sunny out, though. Angel's 'rampage' is over, and our new operation actually sounds kind of fun." Otonashi's amicable tone suddenly switched to a much more serious one, and he placed a hand on Yuki's shoulder. "So, Oyama... Is there something wrong?"

"Huh? I'm not sure what you mean," replied Yuki, stepping back a little. He tried to give a breezy laugh, but it came out tense and nervous. His acting skills were, like most other things, not that great, and he was surprised that he had managed to keep up the facade of normalcy this long.

"You seemed really out of it during the meeting, that's all. I've only known you for a little while, but it's not especially like you to space out." Otonashi looked genuinely concerned, and for a moment, Yuki had the strangest urge to hug his friend and start crying out all his anxieties. He shook it away, though, and stood there in tense silence.

"I'm fine, just a bit tired," he said finally, rubbing his eyes for emphasis. Otonashi didn't quite seem to buy it, but he shrugged and walked away, wishing Yuki luck with his part of the mission.

"Right, I'd better ask Hinata about that," Yuki reminded himself, walking off to find his roommate.

Hideki, as it turned out, was on the baseball field swinging a bat around. Yuki ran out to meet him, waving cheerily.

"Hinata!" He called, causing the older teen to turn around.

"Hey there, man. What're you up to?" Hideki grinned goofily, slinging the bat over his shoulders.

"I wanted to ask you about the operation..." Yuki mumbled, somewhat embarrassed over having completely blanked out on the briefing. "S-Sorry for drifting off like that, by the way."

Hideki gave him a firm pat on the back. "No worries, man. Happens to the best of us." He sighed. "Like I said, we're going to be checking out a bunch of weird boxes the Vice Prez has been stashing away in the council's meeting room. The others are going to cause a bunch of distractions all around the school, but our part is to find a way into the room while nobody's there. That clear things up?"

Yuki nodded, a bit hesitantly. "When do we go?"

"This afternoon. Noda's gonna yank the fire alarm, so we'll know when it's time," explained Hideki. "Okay?"

"Mhm," replied Yuki. "But... Can I ask you another question?"

Hideki smiled. "You just did. In all seriousness though, go ahead and shoot."

"Why was I picked for such an important part of the mission? I mean, you're a fast runner, but I'm just... Me." Yuki looked at the ground awkwardly.

"Oyama..." Suddenly, Hideki reached under Yuki's chin, gently tilting the smaller boy's head upwards until they were eye to eye. "Yuri may have said it's because you look inconspicuous and couldn't possibly cause a big enough ruckus to act as a distraction, but I don't think that's it. Just between the two of us, I'm really gonna be counting on your help, okay? After all, you are our team cleric."

Yuki gave a watery but genuine laugh as he remembered their old joke that had fallen out of use in the past few months. "Y-Yeah, that's right... I can heal you if we get into trouble."

"That's the spirit!" Hideki stepped away, casually taking a few swings with his bat. After a couple minutes, he turned back to Yuki. "Hey, look, man... You mind telling me what's wrong?"

"Nothing! Nothing's wrong!" Yuki panicked a bit. "Meet you at the student council room for the mission, okay? Bye!" He ran away, then kept running until he could feel his nerves easing.

Yuki leaned against the wall. "I can't tell anyone. I just can't... Not yet. Everybody's so busy, I don't want to distract them with my stupid issues... Plus, they'd probably laugh. Isn't it silly of me to be upset over a birthday and a bunch of bad dreams?" 

**Next Chapter:**

 **No, Yuki, it really isn't.**


	2. Chapter 2

**Hi, I'm back! Does it show that I'm writing these chapters with frequent updates and story-finishing in mind rather than quality? 'Cause it sure seems so to me. Schedule will be one or two chapters per week (until exams in June, when I make no guarantees), but the teasers will get longer and more detailed in case I don't get a chance to post on a given week. Happy reading!**

 _"—-! —-, please help us!" Yuki heard himself, though much younger, calling out for someone whose name he couldn't recall. The room stank faintly of gunpowder, and he heard a scream and a bang._

 _"Yuna!" A little girl, probably a bit older than him at the time, began to sob as she frantically called out. Yuki's eyes stayed clenched shut, and he could feel his heartbeat racing. Blood roared around his ears, and he recalled a morbid gratitude that it was still inside his body. Tears burned down his cheeks as ten more terrifying minutes ticked away._

 _He faintly wondered why he knew that exact time before yelping as he felt a cold piece of metal rest against his forehead. He heard another deafening bang, and everything went dark._

Yuki woke up, sweating and panting. His throat felt raw from screaming over and over as he saw the scene on repeat, though it was only another dream... The same one that had been giving him trouble for the past several weeks, but nonetheless a dream.

He looked around. Apparently he had walked to the balcony near the student council room before falling asleep, which meant he wouldn't be late to meet Hideki for the mission. Yawning, he got to his feet and stretched. He couldn't have been asleep for too long, so he probably had awhile until-

 _Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Drrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiing! Drrrrrrrrrrrrrrrriiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiing!_

The fire alarm began to go off, loud and obnoxious. Yuki quickly nestled into the corner of the balcony, hoping none of the fleeing NPCs would see him and try to make him evacuate along with them. As the bell was replaced by the rapid pitter-patter of sprinklers and the rushing footsteps faded into the distance, Yuki breathed a sigh of relief.

"Hinata?" He whispered, stepping into the empty corridor. "Hinata?" He tried again, louder so as not to be drowned out by the noise of the sprinklers. Still, his friend was nowhere to be found.

One minute passed, then two, then five that quickly turned into ten, fifteen, twenty... Yuki chanced a look out the window onto the field, where it looked like the teachers and students were preparing to re-enter the building.

"What should I do?" Yuki paced back and forth in front of the empty meeting room. "This type of plan might not work again... Someone could suspect. Really it's a no brainer: I should take initiative, go on in and do my part, but..."

Yuki sighed. "B-But I'm just me! I mean, I suppose I'm kind of okayish at a lot of different things, but I... I'm not good at anything. There's nothing special about me, nothing that distinguishes me in the slightest!" Once he realized he was yelling, and at nothing to boot, he slumped against the wall.

"I-I know! I have to... I have to do my best, to be a valuable member of Battlefront!" He clenched his fists, steeling himself, and opened the meeting room door.

The place was surprisingly plain, for all he had heard about it. It had green walls with a single table in the middle, a few chairs stacked on one side, and a broom closet by the window. Nothing about this place suggested that it contained some huge secret, but appearances could be misleading. Still, Yuki had to admit it wasn't anything like the creepy ancient chamber he had imagined.

Yuki couldn't see anywhere to keep mysterious boxes but the closet, so he walked over and opened that. It was much bigger on the inside, and surprisingly cluttered for a student council space. There wasn't anything within reach except for brooms, and he couldn't see into the shadows at the back, so he stepped in and began to rummage around. It certainly wasn't the most efficient method of searching, but he didn't know how to turn on the light.

The first thing he encountered that was not a cleaning supply was a pocketwatch on a chain, which was somewhat odd as there were clocks all over the place (not to mention more modern wristwatches) and no real need to carry a timepiece. He supposed that might have been why the watch was in the closet rather than in use, but he put it in his pocket to show the others later.

Next, he found a rather sticky and gunky stuffed animal. He had even less of an idea why that would be in the meeting room closet, but it was both massive and yucky so he left it where it was.

About five feet further into the closet, he felt something metallic tap against his head. Yuki momentarily panicked - that dream's fault, no doubt - before realizing it was probably the chain of a very old lightbulb. He yanked it, and sure enough, he heard a fizzling from above him and a light flickered on.

Right in front of him was a pile of boxes, each one about the size of a standard first aid kit. They looked metallic, and they were all different colours. There was a blue one, a red one, one in a sort of Northern Lights pattern, a bedazzled neon green one, and one with shifting patterns that hurt Yuki's eyes to look at.

Of course, he couldn't take all of them, so he decided to look through them and pick out a few that seemed to be of particular interest. The only problem with that plan was that he had absolutely no idea what Yuri wanted to find out from the boxes. Did she want information, or something else? Sometimes Yuri was completely incomprehensible, and Yuki was still mildly terrified of her, so he didn't want to evoke her ire.

Shrugging his mildly shivering shoulders, Yuki opened the plain blue and red boxes first. They both contained tiny medical capsules. He wasn't sure exactly what use that could be for the Battlefront, so he closed them back up and put them down.

Yuki then proceeded to open the neon green one, which was empty. Upon further examination, the shiny spheres dotting its surface were containers for a sweet-smelling powder. He closed this as well and put it back down, careful not to crush too many of the beads.

Just as Yuki was about to open the headache-box, he heard the meeting room's door open. Startled, he turned the light back off and went as far back into the closet as he could, taking the box with him. Figuring he might be able to get a sense of what its contents were by sense of touch, he lifted up the lid as quietly as possible and, trying to hush his nervous breaths and steady his trembling hands, hesitantly poked at the centre of the box.

Then, everything went red.

 **Next Chapter:**

 **Hideki finally shows up, but something's wrong with Yuki - like, really _really_ wrong. Naoi is coming back, though, so somehow Hideki's gotta get them both the hell out of Dodge...**


End file.
